Semiconductor wafers, glass substrates, etc. are used for manufacturing semiconductor chips, photo masks, magnetic disks, liquid crystal displays, and so forth. In the manufacturing processes of such products, fluctuation of the manufacturing process or a foreign object or pattern appearance inferiority (hereinafter referred to as a “defect”) on the surface of a semiconductor wafer, glass substrate, etc. can lead to defectives and inferior products. For this reason, the semiconductor wafers and glass substrates are inspected in some way in the middle of the manufacture and the occurrence of abnormalities is monitored during the manufacturing process. When some type of abnormality is found, the cause of the occurrence of the abnormality is determined immediately, the manufacturing conditions are adjusted or changed, and countermeasures are taken so as to prevent the occurrence of the same type of defects to the products manufactured.
The detection of abnormalities is carried out by methods like defect/abnormality detection by use of an external appearance inspection device, pattern dimension fluctuation monitoring by use of a length measurement device (CD-SEM), defect monitoring by fixed point observation by use of a defect review device, etc. The CD-SEM is a device for measuring the dimensions of lines, spaces, contact holes, etc. in a circuit pattern. The CD-SEM performs the fixed point observation in regard to the dimensions of multiple parts of the sample and detects a process abnormality by using fluctuations in the length measurement values. The external appearance inspection device is a device for acquiring images of the sample and calculating defect positions by comparative calculation with an appropriate reference image or an adjacent circuit pattern. There are some types of external appearance inspection devices, such as bright field external appearance inspection devices, dark field external appearance inspection devices and scanning electron microscope (SEM) external appearance inspection devices. The defect review device is a device for capturing images of preset review positions and thereby judging whether a defect exists in the acquired images or not or analyzing the types of defects existing in the acquired images. Through the analysis of the types of the defects occurring at the positions of the fixed point observation and composition analysis of the defects, the above devices can be used as process monitoring tools for automatically detecting abnormalities or fluctuations occurring in the manufacturing process.
When the aforementioned CD-SEM, external appearance inspection device or defect review device is used as a process monitoring tool, measurement/inspection in the same conditions are performed on the same type of wafers by using software called a “recipe” describing conditions of the measurement/inspection. When an abnormal measurement/inspection result outside the supposition by the recipe is detected due to fluctuation in the process conditions, the device judges that some type of error has occurred and stops the operation. Therefore, the recipe has to be changed or readjusted each time when the process conditions are changed.
Patent Literature 1 has disclosed a recipe diagnosis device which is configured to allow the recipe setter (who sets the recipe) to grasp the timing of execution of the recipe adjustment, by comparing a scanning electron microscope's operating conditions (which have been set based on the recipe) with history information on the operating conditions and displaying the temporal transition of the fluctuating values of the operating conditions on a monitor. According to the invention described in the literature, the recipe setter is enabled to make the recipe adjustment with appropriate timing, and consequently, to maintain the automation rate of the scanning electron microscope at a high level.
Patent Literature 2 has disclosed an invention for increasing the accuracy of management of log data of a substrate processing device such as an optical exposure device and an EUV device. The invention increases the management accuracy of the log data (such as information representing the transition of the substrate processing, information regarding the contents of the substrate processing which has been executed, and measurement information representing the results of various types of measurement performed during the substrate processing) by recording the log data together with identification information representing a component of the substrate processing device.